Preaching Well Podcast

Words matter.
Preaching matters.
Every day, someone stands up and speaks.
And people lean in - hungry for hope, truth, and meaning.

But preaching is hard work:
It takes craft.
It takes courage.
It takes character.

That’s why we’ve created Preaching Well - a podcast for preachers and those who love preaching.

Hosted by Bishop Saju Muthalaly, Bishop of Loughborough in the Diocese of Leicester, each episode contains deep wisdom from some of the most insightful and inspiring voices in contemporary Christianity.

Each episode will draw listeners into deep, energising conversations that bring wisdom, wit, and wonder to the craft of preaching.

Designed to encourage and equip you to communicate Scripture clearly, compassionately, and courageously across cultures, through differing contexts, and for every generation.

Preaching Well - where the art of preaching meets the pulse of the world.

Open your app, hit play, and dive deep into the conversation...

Episode 1: Rowan Williams

What if preaching isn’t a performance, but a pilgrimage?

In this episode of Preaching Well, Rowan Williams—poet, priest, theologian, and one of the most extraordinary Christian voices of our time—invites us into the landscape where sermons are born.

He speaks of childhood pulpits in Wales, the confidence of abundance, the ache of mystery, the courage of hope, and the quiet, stubborn joy of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a congregation and whispering, “Will you look at that with me?”

Rowan guides us through Augustine and the Desert Fathers, the limits of language, the long work of healing, and the audacity of preaching in a fractured world. He names the tensions, honours the questions, and returns—again and again—to the God who breaks us open the way bread is broken.

It’s tender. It’s wise. It’s full of light.

Episode 2: Rt Revd Martyn Snow, Bishop of Leicester

Plot of a Sermon: Homiletical Plot
What happens when a preacher of 35 years sits in a room full of new voices and tells the truth - that preaching is still hard, still mysterious, still thrilling?

In this episode of Preaching Well, Bishop Saju and Revd Kat sit down with Bishop Martyn, who opens up about everything: the content of his first sermon at 17, the stories that shaped him, the African night that rewired his preaching, and why meaning‑making matters when the world feels bewildering.

He talks plot, tension, light in the dark, mystery that refuses to shrink, and the beauty of adapting your voice from tiny rural chapels to buzzing inner‑city churches. He names his influences - from Wesley to Ortberg to Paula Gooder - and shares the secret hope he carries into every pulpit.

It’s warm, funny, honest, and full of lived wisdom for anyone who has ever tried to speak about God to real people in a real world.
If you preach, want to preach, or simply care about the craft that shapes the church, this conversation will move you.

Episode 3: Dr Chris Gnanakan

Preaching Interculturally: Crafting in Context and Culture

In the third episode of Preaching Well, Dr Gnanakan takes us from Palm Sunday nerves to preaching in North Korea, from crowded classrooms to hidden churches, from American halls to back street gatherings in Asia.

When Dr. Chris Gnanakan walks into a room, something shifts. He unpacks the fire in his bones, the power of one big idea, the danger of twisting truth, the art of stories that hit the heart, and the courage it takes to preach where others won’t, don’t, or can’t.

This is preaching with scars, joy, grit, humour, and a fierce love for Jesus.

Episode 4: Dr Jared E Alcantara

Preaching Across Borders: Theology, Gospel and Cultural Dynamics. What happens when preaching crosses borders - and finds its voice on the move?

In the fourth episode of Preaching Well, Dr. Jared Alcántara takes us from New Jersey housing blocks to Honduran heritage, from migrant churches to megacities.

From jazz like improvisation to the art of preaching that reads a room, Dr Jared shifts gears, and crosses cultures without losing the gospel’s center. He opens up the craft: internalizing a sermon instead of memorizing it, riffing like a jazz musician, building bridges between text and context, and helping preachers speak with courage, humility, and holy imagination in an intercultural world that won’t wait for us to catch up.

Episode 5: Dr Kelly Brown Douglas

Preaching Justice and Hope: Faith, Resilience & Theology. What happens when a preacher carries a whole people’s story into the pulpit?

In the fifth episode of Preaching Well, the Very Revd Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, trailblazing priest, womanist theologian, and voice of moral fire opens her heart and her history.

She takes us from a rainy Dayton street to Harlem classrooms, from enslaved ancestors to vigils, from lectionary wrestling to preaching with butterflies in her stomach and a cloud of witnesses at her back. Kelly reveals the truth she brings to every sermon: God’s justice breathes in every life, and hope rises from stories the world tried to silence.

Bold. Tender. Unfiltered. Hit play.

Episode 6: Ram Gidoomal CBE

This episode contains sensitive discussions about suicide, extreme poverty, and honour based violence. These themes may be distressing for some listeners. If anything in this episode affects you, reach out to trusted friends, family, or professional helplines in your area. You’re not alone.

Preaching with Courage, Influence and Cultural Humility. What happens when a refugee boy from Kenya walks into a London pub… and meets Jesus. That moment sparked a life that races across continents, boardrooms, slums, and sanctuaries.

In the sixth episode of Preaching Well, Ram Gidoomal takes us from the Silk Road to Southall corner shops, from first class flights to the heartbreak of the Dharavi slum, from helping build a £130 million business to walking away because God broke his heart open.

Ram talks about home and homesickness, honor and courage, food and faith, preaching across cultures, and the one sermon that rewired his life forever.

It’s raw. It’s global. It’s full of fire, humour, surprise, and hope.

Episode 7: Canon Dr. Hueston Finlay

Preaching as a Sacramental Act and being Faithful to the Scriptures. What happens when a preacher treats Scripture like a flame - something to break open, not decorate?

In the seventh episode of Preaching Well, Canon Dr. Hueston Finlay takes us inside a life shaped by Ireland, engineering, Cambridge, Windsor, and the fierce conviction that sermons should breathe, not perform.

Hueston speaks of listening as prayer, imagination as obedience, and preaching as a kind of sacrament - breaking the Word the way bread is broken. He pushes back against relevance, trendiness, and preacher centric sermons

He returns us again and again to the text, the tradition, the silence, the Hebrew, the Greek, the Church Fathers, the lectionary, and the God who still speaks through them.

This is preaching stripped back to its bones: honest, meticulous, reverent, daring with astonishing clarity.

Episode 8: Dean Mark Oakley

Preaching as Poetry: The Nearness in Singing Theology into Life. What happens when a preacher treats language like a sacrament and poetry like oxygen?

In the eighth episode of Preaching Well, Dean Mark Oakley invites us into a world where sermons breathe, words stretch, and faith grows in the tension between doubt and delight.

He moves from John Donne’s “nearness of the preacher” to the postcards of Nazareth; from poetry that startles the soul to taxi cab grace in Dresden; from the war with cliché to the courage of sermons that shake us awake.

This is preaching as craft, honesty, imagination, and hope, told with Dean Mark Oakley's trademark wit, depth, and gentle fire.

Quietly electric. Thoughtful. Full of resonance.

Episode 9: Revd Dr Hannah Steele

Preaching with Summons and being an Invitation to Jesus. What if preaching is less about delivering answers and more about opening a door?

In the ninth episode of Preaching Well, Revd Dr Hannah Steele - theologian, missiologist, and everyday evangelism whisperer - invites us into a world where sermons feel like summons, stories become seeds, and the gospel grows where real life happens.

Hannah talks about preaching as an invitation, evangelism as encounter, and mission as the gentle work of reframing what people think they already know. She moves through Scripture, cinema, culture, curiosity, and the quiet art of noticing - showing how one well placed word, like “daughter,” can break open a heart.

This is preaching with warmth, imagination, honesty, and hope.

A meadow of truth, not a lecture.

Hit play.

Episode 10: Rt Revd Guli Francis-Dehquani, Bishop of Chelmsford

Preaching the Rhythms and from the Margins. A bishop shaped by exile, welcome, and the slow courage of untying life’s hardest knots steps.

Episode ten is a vivid, searching conversation with Bishop Guli, who opens up about preaching that breathes - preaching rooted in honesty, tension, questions, and the kind of quiet conviction that still moves mountains.

She speaks of fear in the church, the gift of asking better questions, the poetry of faith, and the strange holiness of wrestling with Scripture that both comforts and wounds. She talks about learning not to collapse under the weight of every knot in the rope, how to spot the ones that can be loosened, and how to make peace with the ones that won’t budge.

Across the episode, she invites us into a posture of trust, resonance, authenticity, and brave tenderness. Not showmanship. Not clichés. Just the real work of preaching in a fearful world: do not be afraid.

It’s warm, wise, surprising, and full of movement. A conversation for anyone who longs to preach, or live with more depth, more honesty, and more courage.

Episode 11: Rt Revd Sam Corley, Bishop of Stockport

Premise of preaching: Craft, Content and Character. What happens when a preacher discovers that God is already speaking - and the sermon is simply joining in?

In episode eleven of Preaching Well, Bishop Sam takes us from a tiny 8am communion in his early twenties to pulpits across the country, sharing the moment when preaching snapped into place, like riding a bike with the wind in his face.

He talks about reading Scripture like a long, living story, hosting a congregation like guests at a table, and finding the courage to preach when his own words feel dry and nothing seems to land. Sam opens up about telling stories that touch the heart, asking questions that let silence work, letting God have the loudest voice in the room, and learning - slowly, painfully - to be himself in the pulpit.

Warm, honest, grounded, full of joy and hard-won wisdom.

Episode 12: Revd Jonathan Macy & Revd Phil Bryson

Preaching as a living conversation shaped by Trust, Courage and Faith. What happens when the preachers who break open the gospel are the ones the world might overlook?

In the twelfth episode of Preaching Well, two vicars - Revd Jonathan Macy, who preaches with a stammer, and Revd Phil Bryson, who lives and preaches with a visual impairment - show us how the good news runs through weakness, courage, and raw honesty.

Revd Jonathan Macy speaks slowly because he must. Rev Phil Bryson preaches without seeing a face in the room. And yet their sermons land with power. Their vulnerability opens doors. Their congregations come alive.

Together, they talk about calling, resilience, joy, inclusion, and the surprising gifts released when the pulpit becomes a place for every voice and every body part - especially the ones the apostle Paul calls 'weaker,' 'different,' or 'indispensable'.

It’s earthy. It’s brave. It’s full of hope.

Episode 13: Archbishop Stephen Cottrell

Preaching is Simply a Long, Steady Walk with God

The Archbishop of York walks into the conversation with stories that spark, stretch, and surprise.

Stephen Cottrell opens up about the craft he loves - preaching that overflows, reveals, repeats, slows down, and dares to invite. He talks about childhood outside the church, the moment Scripture made him weep in the pulpit, the joy of feeding the soul with art and poetry, and the fierce hope that every sermon can draw someone closer to Christ.

He wrestles with vulnerability, tells the truth about microphones, pace, and craft, and shows why story - raw, human, embodied - still cuts through the noise. He names the hunger in our churches, the longing in our culture, and the courage it takes to call people home.

It’s vivid, warm, unexpected, and full of movement. A joyful, searching conversation with a preacher who believes the gospel is beautiful enough to change us - and generous enough to invite a response every time.

Episode 14: Prof Anthony Reddie

Preaching with fire, tenderness, resistance, and grace

What happens when preaching refuses to soothe and instead dares to tell the truth?

In this episode of Preaching Well, Professor Anthony Reddie — theologian, storyteller, disruptor, and one of the UK’s leading voices in Black liberation theology — takes us into the pulpit as a place of protest, imagination, memory, and mercy.

Anthony speaks of Windrush beginnings, Bradford classrooms, family storytellers, and the church’s long entanglement with power. He names the courage it takes to preach against empire inside institutions shaped by empire. He shows how humour undoes defences, how stories open doors, and how the gospel sides — stubbornly — with those crushed at the margins.

This is preaching with fire, tenderness, resistance, and grace.Not comfort. Not neutrality. A summons to truth.

Episode 15: Rt Rev Graham Tomlin

Preaching is a space where Scripture burns, culture listens, and the Spirit breathes.

Bishop Graham Tomlin has preached through fire - literally.

From parish pulpits to national crises, he’s carried a voice shaped by Scripture, culture, and the raw edges of human experience. In this episode, he opens his study, his honesty, and his hard-won wisdom. 

We move fast: from Pascal’s “night of fire” to Grenfell’s ash; from the surprises hidden in familiar texts to the quiet weight of a preacher’s character; from storytelling as spiritual art to preaching that speaks to believers, doubters, and everyone in between. 

Graham shows us why the cross still disrupts, why good sermons begin in silence, why hope matters in catastrophe, and how every preacher can learn to read the world with biblical eyes. 

It’s warm. It’s searching. It’s full of stories, insight, and unexpected laughter.  A masterclass in preaching — and a gentle call to become the kind of person whose life can bear the weight of the words we speak. 

Episode 16: David Porter

Preaching that creates a space where enemies become neighbours, and truth is spoken gently.

What happens when a preacher steps into the pulpit carrying stories of Belfast, Bosnia, Coventry — and the hard‑won wisdom of reconciliation?

In this episode of Preaching Well, David Porter - strategist, peacebuilder, listener, and longtime companion in conflict‑torn places — opens up the craft of preaching as a public act of courage, humility, and deep, attentive love.

David talks flags and fractures, identity and nationalism, lament and trauma, listening as a spiritual discipline, and the miracle of speaking truth with grace in communities that don’t agree on much. He names the complexity, refuses the easy slogan, and shows how preaching can hold open a space where enemies become neighbours, and truth walks gently.

This is preaching that steadies, unsettles, and heals.

Quiet strength. Fierce honesty. Real hope.

Episode 17: Lat Blaylock

Preaching Good News to the to the honest, unfiltered minds of young people.

What if the most powerful theologians in the room are eleven years old?

In this episode of Preaching Well, Lat Blaylock - teacher, thinker, storyteller, and longtime shaper of young hearts - takes us to the frontier where school and church meet.

Lat moves between classrooms and chapels, parables and poetry, Gandhi essays and jigsaw‑piece souls. He shows how children crack open questions adults are too afraid to ask, how teaching trains the preacher’s imagination, and how good news sounds when spoken to the honest, unfiltered minds of young people.

He talks about grace, curiosity, artistry, silence, formation, and the fierce belief that anyone - absolutely anyone - might be standing on the threshold of a spiritual awakening.

It’s surprising. It’s tender. It’s alive with wonder.

Episode 18: Ian Collinge

A rhythm of revelation that reshapes preaching, prayer, music, table, and pulpit

What if worship didn’t just include different cultures - but was shaped by them?

In this episode of Preaching Well, Bishop Saju sits down with Ian Collinge, an ethnodoxologist - a listener of cultures, rhythms, stories, and songs. Not a curator. A guest. A learner.

They talk about the move from multicultural worship (many cultures present) to intercultural worship (many cultures shaping the song together). From adding a token language to sharing real agency. From attendance to ownership.

Ian unpacks worship as a journey - God speaks, we respond, God speaks again. A rhythm of revelation and response that reshapes preaching, prayer, music, table, and pulpit. He asks sharp questions with gentle force: Who chooses the songs? Who holds the mic? Who gets heard?

This is a conversation about humility and power. About language and listening. About story - not fitting God into our story, but finding ourselves inside God’s story, from creation to new creation.

You’ll leave with images you won’t forget: A table with more than one kind of bread. A song with more than one pulse. A pulpit with more than one voice.

If you preach. If you plan worship. If you’ve ever felt your services needed more than good intentions.
This episode listens deeply, challenges gently, and invites the church to sing again - together.

Episode 19: Rt Revd Dr Eleanor Sanderson, Bishop of Hull

Prayer, Fire, and the Courage to Speak

What happens when a preacher shaped by student hostels, Pacific villages, and the aftermath of the Christchurch attacks steps into the pulpit?

Bishop Eleanor brings a rare mix of tenderness and power - prayer that burns deep, vulnerability that risks everything, and a global vision that refuses to shrink God to one culture.

In this episode, she talks mission as apprenticeship, preaching as community life, leading through crisis, praying inside a mosque, and learning to hear God’s voice in both silence and tears. It’s preaching with guts. Preaching with joy. Preaching that leans hard on the Spirit.

Come and hear a bishop who doesn’t just prepare sermons - she wrestles with them, weeps over them, and sometimes proclaims them like a wave that’s been building for days.

This is a conversation for anyone who wants to preach with depth, clarity, courage, and hope.